I'm a libertarian lawyer and college professor. I blog on religion, history, constitutional law, government policy, philosophy, sexuality, and the American Founding. Everything is fair game though. Over the years, I've been involved in numerous group blogs that come and go. This blog archives almost everything I write.
Email your questions or comments to rowjonathan@aol.com

Sunday, October 31, 2010

A New Direction:

I had an "a ha" moment today. I'm going to start blogging about a complex topic which I've only hinted at over the past six years. I don't even know what to call it because I DO NOT want to be the next New Age self help guru; but there's going to be times when I sound like I am. I plan on making NO money off this. Rather, it's in the charitable spirit of good will and philosophy (discovery of truth).

You are going to hear names and terms like Deepak Chopra, Roy Masters, Eckhart Tolle, Wayne Dyer, Howard Stern, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, John Lennon, Frederick Von Hayek, Jesus, the Bible, Aristotle, Stoicism, Sam Harris, and Robert Wright, and many others (many esoteric ones), all tied together to support a comprehensive teaching.

None of them is an "authority" because, as we know (or should) appeal to authority is a logical fallacy. Indeed, I take issue with most of the above named on certain, sometimes many issues. All of this is, for the most part, compatible with Aristotle and philosophy 101.

Therefore, I am no authority. I say things that are true because they are and it's up to you to "see" that. And if you don't, oh well. You can't push or bully people into truth, at least not in an emotionally healthy way for either party. That is, one of my truth discoveries.

There are emotionally healthy and unhealthy ways of accepting and living by truth.

I'll give an example. Truth: It's good to wash your hands a few times a day to avoid germs. The healthy way of living that truth: Wash your hands a few times a day on autopilot, unthinkingly. The unhealthy way: Worrying about getting sick and washing your hands, compulsively. An intrusive thought comes into your head: "You better wash your hands or else you are going to get sick!" Coupled with anxiety.

Truth: The voice in your head is unhealthy and unneeded. It is a metaphorical demon that needs to be exorcised.

And then the compulsive hand washer brags to everyone about how much he washes his hands and hasn't had a cold in 5 years. The person accomplishes a positive result but for the wrong reasons. Something dark and unhealthy, evil indeed, motivates them and takes a psychological toll.

This is, I believe, a more dangerous form of obsessive compulsive "disorder" because the person who turns the lights on and off five times before entering the room or else something horrible will happen is (or usually is) consciously aware that no rhyme or reason justifies the ritual. Yet, the person who washes the hands can rationalize (the perfect tool for human delusion) the unhealthy way of ultimately, doing the responsible thing (washing your hands to avoid germs).

The right way to learn truth is for folks to accept it on their own, not as a response to emotional pressure. To have an "a ha" moment, precisely NOT because someone told them it was true and tried to bully them into it. The bully might be in possession of that aspect of truth (while simultaneously having something wrong with them that makes them bully). And if they succeed in bullying someone into accepting X, it comes with unhealthy resentment. Reverse psychological effects, also, abound precisely for this reason.

You may need to, because you have no other choice, humiliate someone who intends to harm you to protect yourself; and once out of the picture, they can figure things out themselves.

(The example I'm thinking of is a bully comes after you to impress his friends and you slap him down, if you can. Hopefully, he will eventually stop bullying people. If not, to Hell with him. God or Fate will get him in the end.)

Or, if he comes to you for help, you can help him (and you would if you didn't resent him; resentment, as an emotion, we will later see, is never justified; you must forgive those who have done you wrong, for your sake more so than theirs).

But humiliation when you could have handled the situation patiently is wrong. In terms of the parent child model, it's a form of imperfection that is endemic to much of middle class society who otherwise make "good" parents (that is, where the parents remain intact and otherwise provide for their children and do not physically abuse them; Howard Stern will provide a great example later).

Sam Harris and Robert Wright are an extremely important part of the mix because they too seem to be "on" to some of these things, but have credibility with hard nosed scientific, skeptically minded folks. Not that "credibility" with anyone matters in terms of truth discovery (that's just another form of the appeal to authority logical fallacy). But I do want to show that these things are compatible with hard nosed scientific skepticism and philosophy 101.

Likewise, I will discuss what the West can learn from the East. Certainly, Western Civilization invented a disproportionate share of "modernity" that's been exported to much of the non-Western world. Indeed, many Asian nations now seem to be beating the West at this game. Modernity, technology, scientific achievement. These are good. But the East has, I think, much it could teach the West in terms of "how to deal with things."

And who knows, maybe this has been all part and parcel of the West all along, even "Judeo-Christianity." One of the above mentioned names actually argues this IS authentic Judeo-Christianity, completely compatible with everything the Bible says and in fact, what Jesus is all about.

I'm not sold that this is Judeo-Christianity, but it may well be authentically Western. I had another "a ha" moment when teaching Buddhism to my international business class. (Again, I doubt I am the first, in fact, I am almost certain I am not, to make this connection; but the fact that I had the "a ha" moment made the discovery all the more valuable.)

So much of Buddhism with its idea of resigning oneself to Fate sounds like Stoicism (the philosophy of the pre-Imperial, pre-Christian, noble pagan republican Romans). And indeed we get much of this Stoicism synthesized with Judeo-Christian Providence in the American Founding. As George Washington said: "the ways of Providence [are] inscrutable...." More modern folks have said, "let go and let God." God might not exist. To the atheist or agnostic, "let go and let Fate." As Neil Peart put it: Roll the Bones.

In many ways, this is something that I've been looking into my entire life; but for years my mind was undisciplined, unaware of the logical fallacies in philosophy. I might go off half cocked and sometimes half joking during a drunken college bull session, seeking to get at the truth, but find out years later that I was full of shit.

I am at a point now where I think I've found a great deal of truth that I am ready to discuss. Though admittedly, I have much to learn. I am wise enough to know I don't have the whole truth.

What the Hell am I talking about? You are going to have to wait and see as this unfolds.

1 comment:

But why do some minds wander more than others? The study ignores the well-documented unconscious processes undergirding conscious thought. The assumption of directionality in the findings is based on the thoroughly debunked notion that conscious thought springs from nothing, as if it's just there, for no reason, without supporting architecture. Try getting a seriously depressed person to continuously think in the moment. You'll soon discover that conscious redirection of thought (and conscious redirection of activities) only go so far.

What the authors have done here is taken an affective process and, starting at a midway point in the process, assumed that the midway point is itself the foundation of the larger affective process.

I can say that all home runs in baseball result from a ball making contact with a bat. I am far from explaining home run hitters and far from the kind of knowledge required to develop the ability to hit home runs. The question remains, "why do some hitter's bats make contact with the ball leading to home runs, while others do not?"